


Perfect, Like A Circle

by Kami



Category: LOONA (Korea Band), OnlyOneOf (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29877945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kami/pseuds/Kami
Summary: Jaden Jeong's true objective has remained a secret for a long time.
Kudos: 1





	Perfect, Like A Circle

**Author's Note:**

> The recent [fandom name announcement](https://twitter.com/OnlyOneOf_twt/status/1366040468203532291) set me off on this crazy conspiracy theory, I'm so sorry.
> 
> Stan LOONA and OnlyOneOf and their inexplicable capital letters! <3

His hand was shaking as he formed it, and the top came out crooked. A little nick, nothing to glance at, but enough of a roughening for energy to get stuck to. To build up where it needed to flow.

Jaden had learned his lesson after the _favOriTe_ debacle where he had to call in every favour he had, plus some he hadn't earned yet, to cover for the explosion. That cursed edge of the capital T! He had needed it to deflect suspicion, had calculated it would be too far away to be a problem, and he had been wrong. That had been his best chance, all those riled-up fans focusing all their energy on the name of the first song with all twelve of them. It still burned him, that it had ended that way.

Well, there was nothing he could do about it now. That opportunity had entirely slipped from his grasp. He knew he ought to consider himself lucky that he had laid the groundwork for an alternative plan.

There was no luck about this part of the process, though. Just relentless hard work, just performing the same action over and over until it came out just as he'd pictured it. The perfect bulb of the first _O_ alongside the soft nub of _n_ , the innocuous _l_ and then the _y_ that slyly pointed the way to the part that mattered: the portal, if he could only bring enough attention to it.

He had very nearly closed it when a soft sigh shifted his own attention just long enough to cause one end to slip past the other, the ring permanently broken. Useless.

Jaden turned to glare at his camera operator for the evening.

"I'm just getting a bit bored with this," said Love, and struggled to bite down on a yawn. "It looks good enough to me?"

Jaden was a little annoyed. He should have asked the one whose hair got in the way of him having opinions.

"That's because you don't understand," he said. "It is not good enough to be 'good enough'. It must be—"

" _Perfect_. Yes," said Love, "I've worked with you a long time. I know."

Jaden turned back to a fresh sheet of paper and raised his pen, then slumped as an inhalation told him Love was going to continue. "I find it so hard to believe what it's all come to, you know, from how it began. It was so beautiful, just her and I circling the rink—"

"Please," said Jaden. "I know how to find YouTube if I ever want to reminisce." He did not really want to remember how much work he had put into that first trap. Love inhaled again, and Jaden made his decision. "Okay. You can go home." 

Love had jumped to his feet before he was able to check himself. "I—are you sure? Won't you need—"

Jaden resisted a harsh retort. These children could not hope to understand the seriousness of what he was doing. "You have schedules of your own. If this is going to take all night, you need to sleep."

He managed to keep his sigh of relief contained until after the door had closed behind Love. It would be an inconvenience to have to operate the camera himself, but it was no use having an assistant who made the task take ten times longer.

With the silence cheering him on, Jaden started to work. Over and over he readjusted the camera and rewrote the incantation, moving relentlessly towards perfection in the part where it mattered. _OnlyOneOf_. _On **lyOn** eOf_. _**lyOn**_. _**O**_.

A loud clattering noise from another room jolted him awake. All the lights were on in the studio. He could hear the voices of the members and their staff all over the place, a disorienting cacophony at low volume. 

Jaden wiped his fingers over his mouth and realised he had been drooling in his sleep. He looked down in a panic at his writing paper... but it wasn't there. The whole desk had been cleared, the camera too. 

He managed to get the attention of the intern as she hurried by, and she reluctantly slowed to stand in front of him. Somehow whenever he saw that woman, she seemed to be moving away from him at a run.

"My set," he said, "the reveal video for the fan club name, it—"

"Oh, yes," she said, "we got that. You did a very good job. Very..." She grimaced. "Very _thorough_."

"You... got it?" Jaden repeated. The unease he'd had ever since he woke was clarifying itself. "But—"

"Don't worry, I was able to figure out which one we were supposed to use." The intern grinned at him. "Yes, I watched the whole reel. The development from the beginning to the end was... something! I triple-checked that it was the last recording that got packaged and uploaded to all the SNS services."

"The... last?" Not the finished product. The last one he'd been able to record before he collapsed in exhaustion. Almost perfect... but the critical central _O_ had a millimetre's gap at the top. A space through which all that energy would drip away almost as fast as it was collected.

And if—

_Uploaded?_

Jaden pulled himself upright. "You... it's been released already?"

"Yes, and the name appears to be getting a very positive reaction with fans, so congratulations—"

"How long?" he demanded. "How long ago?" Then he didn't bother waiting for the answer. He pulled out his phone and checked.

There was the last of the recordings he had made the night before, perfect in every other way... but the _O_ didn't close. Jaden stood there, watching the reactions, the replies, pile up before his eyes. His carefully-constructed portal was now before their eyes... but those _fools_ had used the prototype instead of the finished product, and that meant the portal would never be able to open.

All that hard work, destroyed once more.

Why couldn't they have waited? Why did they _never_ wait?

Around him, the room was alive with applause and congratulations, everyone so pleased with themselves on this day when a new link with the fans had been forged. Jaden stood in the middle of it, somehow very far away though he had not managed to get as far as he wanted.

He had faced some enemies, in his time. None of them were more devastating than these most ordinary and unenlightened of humans.


End file.
